Bree Coleman wears a T shirt with a picture imprinted on it she says she made of Chavis Carter, in Jonesboro as Sakhiya Bell, 4, runs past in August 2012. A lawyer for Jonesboro wants a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the mother of Chavis Carter who authorities say fatally shot himself while handcuffed in the backseat of a police car. Attorneys for the city and police filed a response to the lawsuit in federal court on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013. (ASSOCIATED PRESS / Danny Johnston, File)

LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Lawyers for a northeast Arkansas city on Thursday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from the mother of a young man who authorities say fatally shot himself while handcuffed in the backseat of a police car.

Chavis Carter’s mother, Teresa Rudd, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Jonesboro, its police chief and two officers last month.

Jonesboro police have faced criticism about the circumstances surrounding Carter’s July 2012 death. Officers said they searched Carter twice without finding a gun, but later noticed him slumped over and bleeding in the back of a patrol car.

An autopsy concluded that Carter, 21, shot himself in the head while he was under the influence of meth, but his family last year demanded more answers about his death.

Rudd’s lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, including money for medical expenses and the loss of Carter’s life.

In response to Rudd’s lawsuit, attorneys for Jonesboro, its police chief and two men who were police officers at the time of the shooting said any damages are a result of Carter’s conduct. The defendants’ attorneys, C. Burt Newell and Ralph Ohm, argued their clients are immune and should not be subject to any punitive damages.

Police Chief Michael Yates and the two others named in the lawsuit — Keith Baggett and Ronald Marsh — didn’t respond to a message left at the police department.

Newell, one of their lawyers, said Marsh no longer works for Jonesboro police, but he said Baggett does.

Police said last year that an internal investigation found no wrongdoing on Baggett’s part, but Marsh was reprimanded for not properly searching Carter following a traffic stop. Authorities said two searches of Carter turned up a small amount of marijuana, but no gun.

Both Baggett and Marsh were placed on paid administrative leave after the shooting, but Yates said last August that they had since returned to work.

Newell said he was surprised that Rudd’s lawyers filed a lawsuit a year after Carter’s death.

“When the incident first occurred, there was some talk with attorneys for the family, and we indicated after our investigation that it was just a tragedy that couldn’t have been prevented by the city,” he said. “And we felt like ... after they had time to reflect on it, that they would let it go, but apparently they didn’t.”

One of Rudd’s lawyers, Darrell O’Neal, said in an email that he’s out of the country on Thursday and could speak with a reporter next month.

Carter’s death ignited questions about race because Carter was black and the two officers involved in the traffic stop are white.

The case drew Rev. Jesse Jackson to the area to march with Carter’s mother.

“We hope that people concerned about justice, white and black, would find some common ground as we pursue this case of justice,” Jackson told reporters in Memphis, Tenn., hours before marching in Jonesboro last year. “We simply want justice and fairness in the land. ... We are convinced the explanations given so far are not credible ones.”

Rudd’s lawsuit mentions race, too, but it focuses on what it says is police negligence.

Rudd’s lawsuit also says Yates and the city failed to take steps to assure that the public wouldn’t be harassed, hurt or subjected to civil rights violations by police officers.

Newell and Ohm disputed that in Thursday’s court filing.

“These Defendants affirmatively assert that at no time has a policy, practice, or custom of the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas, resulted in the Plaintiff’s constitutional rights being violated,” they wrote.